After the shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was criticized for a culture that seemed to ignore internal warnings of danger and looming safety concerns. Today's news seemed to echo that conclusion. "The problem was the concern the flight surgeon had" and that it apparently was ignored, said Richard Bachmann, who chaired the committee that wrote one of the reports. While the alcohol incidents are sure to draw the most attention, the reports also detailed a range of psychological problems experienced by astronauts, and provided a series of recommendations including stricter alcohol-related regulations, a more detailed code of conduct, better and more intensive screening before astronauts are assigned to missions, and better communication to enable supervisors to spot and report errant behavior.

Among the implications of such incidents is the difficulty of manning long-term space expeditions, such as an eventual trip to Mars. "They have to take this into account if they don't want disaster," on multi-year missions, says Patricia Santy, a former NASA flight surgeon and the author of Choosing the Right Stuff: The Psychological Selection of Astronauts and Cosmonauts. "These people are cowboys—hard-drinking, hard-loving people. They're willing to take risks, they can laugh in the face of death. The issue is not that they drink, the issue is that NASA has turned a blind eye in the past." What could be needed, she says, is less a new type of astronaut, than a smarter, more focused way of managing them. And that sounds like a familiar suggestion: Better management seems to hold a durable spot on the agency's to-do list. —Jerry Beilinson and Jancy Langley